Dab Kinzer eBook

It was his mother’s voice, and Dab felt like
“minding” very promptly that morning.

“Dabney, my boy, come here to the gate.”

“Ham Morris is having his house painted,”
he remarked, as he walked towards his mother.

“Is he?” she said. “We’ll
go and see about it.”

The gate between the two “side-yards”
had been there from time immemorial, and-they walked
right through. As they drew nearer the Morris
house, however, Dabney discovered that carpenters as
well as painters were plying their trade in and about
the old homestead. There were window-sashes piled
here, and blinds there; a new door or so, ready for
use, a great stack of bundles of shingles, some barrels
of lime, and a heap of sand. Whichever way Dab
looked, there were visible signs of an approaching
renovation.

“Going to fix it all over,” he remarked.

“Yes,” replied his mother: “it’ll
be as good as new. It was well built, and will
bear mending. I couldn’t say that of some
of the shackling things they’ve been putting
up around the village.”

When they entered the house it became more and more
evident that the “shabby” days of the
Morris mansion were numbered. There were men at
work in almost every room.

Ham’s wedding-trip would surely give plenty
of time, at that rate, for an immense amount of “mending;”
and his house would be, as the widow had promised,
“all ready for him on his return.”

There was nothing wonderful to Dabney in the idea
of his mother going about and inspecting work, and
finding fault, and giving directions. He had
never seen her do any thing else, and he had the greatest
confidence in her knowledge and ability. He noticed
too, before they left the place, that the customary
farm-work was going ahead with even more regularity
and energy than if the owner himself had been present.

“Ham’s farm’ll look something like
ours, one of these days,” he said, “if
things go on at this rate.”

“I mean it shall,” replied his mother,
a little sharply. “Now go and get out the
ponies, and we’ll do the rest of our errands.”

Dab started for the barn at a half trot; for, if there
was one thing he liked better than another, it was
to have the reins in his hands and that pair of ponies
before him. Time had been when Mrs. Kinzer did
her own driving, and only permitted Dab to “hold
the horses” while she made her calls, business
or otherwise; but that day had been safely put away
among Dab’s unpleasant memories for a good while.

It was but a few minutes before the neat buggy held
the widow and her son, and the ponies were taking
them briskly down the road towards the village.

It they had only known it, at that very moment Ham
Morris and his blooming bride were setting out for
a drive, at the fashionable watering-place where they
had made their first stop in their wedding-tour.

“Ham,” said Miranda, “it seems to
me as if we were a thousand miles from home.”